Grimmwolf_GB wrote:QUOTE (Grimmwolf_GB @ May 5 2011, 11:50 AM) It is very interesting to read about canadian politics. One hardly ever reads about them in german newspapers, there wasn't even a mention of elections. So continue please.
Well items of note from the 2011 General Election;
RECOUNT IN PROGESS Jay Aspin (CON) - Nipissing--Timiskaming, ON - won by 14 votes (0.03% margin); Anthony Rota (LIB) finished second.
RECOUNT IN PROGESS Ted Opitz (CON) - Etobicoke Centre, ON - won by 25 votes (0.05% margin); Boris Wrzesnewskyj (LIB) finished second.
RECOUNT IN PROGESS François Lapointe (NDP) - Montmagny--L'Islet--Kamouraska--Rivière-du-Loup, QC - won by 5 votes (0.01% margin) after the validated count reversed the election night win by 100 votes of his opponent Bernard Généreux (CON).,
RECOUNT IN PROGESS Kevin Lamoureux (LIB) - Winnipeg North, MB - won by 45 votes (0.18%); Rebecca Blaikie (NDP) finished second.
First Green (elected) Memeber of Parliament. There
was a few years ago a Liberal that was kicked out of his caucas for reasons under a variety of election misconducts, he was cleared eventually but wasn't let back into the caucas, he joined the Green party and became the first (unelected)- however an election was called before he ever took his seat as a Green.
The Liberals had their worst proportional vote and seat total ever, and for the first time are relegated to third place. People are talking can they survive, and the answer is of course. The real question is, can they recover enough to place 2nd in the next election, and that answer is murky though they might be able to. Actually the ideal thing (for most "lol's") would be a New Democract minority governement being proped up by the embarassed Liberals while the Conservatives foam at the mouth and their eyes roll back in their heads.
The Conservatives for the first time are a national party, having elected members in all provinces and have their first majority government. Primarily they benefited from vote spliting, though did see a marginal increase in the popular vote.
Vote splitting; where two (or more) other parties take enough votes to prevent one of them winning and allowing another party to win the seat expressly against the wishes from the "majority" (more or less) of voters- vote spliting is a problem with the archaic First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system, and a different situation, say Single Transferable Vote (STV) where you can vote for more than one candidate and rank them 1st, 2nd, and so on, vote spliting is effectively elminated and instead of that the general will of the people is taken into account if their first choice typically isn't winning (actually losing candidates are eliminated and their vote is transfered to their second and then third and so on until someone has a 'majority')).
The New Democracts, first time as Offical Opposition, incrased their vote total to 4.5 million, increased their seat counts frrom a previous high of 43 to 102. There are talks of unitiing the left and have the Liberals join in with the NDs to form a new party, that won't happen, both parties are sufficiently different that though there is reason for it to eliminate vote spliting between two "left wing" parties against the Conservative "right wing", the Liberals are not left wing and will be moving more to the centre (where they've traditionally been). To any Americans reading, all our parties including the Conservatives are rabid socialists- danger! Don't move here if you think a majority Conservative government will be like a Republican right wing government, danger!
The Bloc Quebecois seats were reduced by almost 92%. While almost 20% Quebecois voted BQ, only 5% of Quebec's MPs are BQ. Both the Conservatives and Liberals received significantly fewer votes than the BQ but won more seats in Quebec, 6 and 7 respectively.
The Conservatives increased their share of the Ontario vote by 5% and saw their share of the seats grow by 20%.
The NDs increased their share of the vote in Manitoba, but their number of seats was cut in half.
The NDs had almost a third of the votes in Saskatchewan without winning a single seat.
Next election 34 more ridings are added (every decennial census the population is calculated to determine riding allocation), around 10% more, reducing the impact of the Quebec vote (and others) which has a minimum of 75 seats mandated by law*. Actually all provinces have a minimum number of seats (for a variety of reasons), first they can never have less parliamentary seats than they have senatorial seats (this is the
senatorial clause), second they can never have less seats than they had in the 33rd Parliament (in 1976, this is the
grandfather clause), and third they can never lose seats based on a dropping population unless they had two consective population drops equaling 5% in the last two decennial censuses (the
one-twentieth rule), and fourth if they did have a drop of seats on the basis of the
one-twentieth rule then they can not in a single riding adjustment lose more than 15% of their parliamentary seats (the
15% clause).
*Some provinces have a further minimum number of seats, such as Quebec, from when they entered Confederation, however, it's moot, as the other minimums are higher, Quebec for example is constitutionally required to have at least 65 seats, though they are also required to have at least 75 from the
grandfather clause. Other provinces have similar situations.
How are ridings added you may ask, what's the forumla?
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. Not President, Emperor, Grand Poobah of Canada (<--- joke)
)
Vote girly for the Toronto Sovereigntist Bloc in 2015!
